"Creation is not about giving life. It is about deciding what kind of life deserves to exist."
The sound of machinery was like a choir without breath — precise, mechanical, reverent.Deep beneath the cathedral of Schicksal Headquarters, behind walls of tempered glass and sanctified secrecy, Otto Apocalypse watched his new Eden take shape.
Rows of containment pods stretched across the laboratory like luminous coffins. Each one pulsed with faint blue light, heartbeat rhythms synchronized to a single console at the room's center.The air smelled of sterilized metal and promise.
Otto moved among the pods with the grace of a priest walking between altars. His reflection slid along the glass — one man surrounded by dozens of sleeping figures.
"Project F-02," he murmured, the syllables precise. "A slow bloom, but a necessary one."
The data displays rippled with lines of genetic script. On one side of the screen: Kaslana — resilience, purity, the echo of Siegfried's blood.On the other: Schariac — radiance, sanctity, the holy sequence that had once produced Cecilia.
Between them, the matrix of his design: Accelerated Body protocol.A human vessel capable of self-repair, rapid regeneration, and controlled metabolic expansion — the culmination of decades of research, fragments of MANTIS theory, and whispers stolen from the Void Archives.
Otto smiled faintly. "The fusion of the body and the ideal."
A technician approached, trembling under the weight of the silence."Archbishop, the synchronization ratios have stabilized. F-02-1 through F-02-5 are entering cognitive link."
Otto raised a hand. "No titles here. We are gardeners, not priests."
He stepped closer to the nearest pod. Inside floated a figure — slender, pale, hair drifting weightless in nutrient gel. The face was unmistakable even through distortion: Florence.
Or a version of her.
"Curious," he said softly. "Each iteration retains a fragment of the original consciousness. Split like glass under sunlight — never destroyed, merely refracted."
The technician hesitated. "Their readings fluctuate, sir. The consciousness fragments behave unpredictably."
Otto's eyes gleamed. "Unpredictable? You mean alive."
He rested a hand on the glass. The clone's eyes fluttered faintly, lips moving with a soundless murmur. The others began to stir as well, their lights rising one by one.
For a moment, the room was filled with overlapping whispers — broken phrases, echoes of laughter, fear, memory.Each voice was Florence, and yet none of them were whole.
"Beautiful," Otto whispered. "Even fractured, the soul seeks unity."
He turned back to his console, recording data in calm precision.
"Holy Blood concentration: triple baseline. Kaslana physical resilience: 96% integration. Accelerated Body regeneration stable within acceptable range. Emotional patterning—fragmented."
He paused, listening to the faint hum of the pods. "You're searching for yourself, aren't you, my dear Florence?"
For a moment, the lights flickered — as if the system itself had heard him.
Otto chuckled. "Even in slumber, you reach for coherence. Admirable."
He walked the length of the chamber, stopping before the largest pod at the end of the row.This one pulsed with golden light instead of blue — the original body, suspended in a deeper stasis field.
Unlike the clones, her expression was peaceful. Almost dreaming.
"You'll sleep for now," he said softly, voice touched with reverence. "Your fragments will learn. They will fail, die, evolve — and through them, you will become perfect."
He raised his hand. The control panel accepted his command with a soft chime.The containment seals tightened. The stasis fluid glowed brighter, then dimmed to a steady rhythm.
"Florence," Otto whispered, "you are not a weapon, nor a vessel. You are art — the union of every bloodline that dared defy extinction."
He turned as his robes brushed the floor. Behind him, the pods pulsed like heartbeats in an artificial womb.The first of the clones opened her eyes — glassy blue with a faint golden halo. Her lips parted.
"...Who... am... I?"
The voice was soft, broken, lost.
Otto smiled — the kind of smile that made faith sound dangerous.
"You are potential."
He left the chamber, the echo of his footsteps trailing behind him.
Inside the silence, the clones began to whisper again — fragments seeking one another, reflections searching for a source.In the deepest pod, the original Florence stirred, her unconscious mind catching faint ripples of herself — sorrow, curiosity, fear — scattered across bodies that bore her face.
Her lips moved in sleep, forming words no one heard.
"I'm still here."
The monitors blinked in answer — lines of data forming a heartbeat pattern too human to be coincidence.
High above the frozen world, Schicksal's cathedral bells rang for morning mass.Otto closed his eyes and whispered a prayer that wasn't holy.
"From the ashes of gods, let us forge our own divinity."
And below, the Garden of Glass continued to breathe — rows of sleeping Florences dreaming of a future that wasn't theirs.